1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless application protocol (WAP) systems, and more particularly, to the mapping of temporary IP addresses to established MSISDN numbers.
2. Description of Related Art
Wireless application protocol (WAP) is positioned at the conversions of two rapidly evolving network technologies, wireless data and the Internet. Both the wireless data market and the Internet are growing very quickly and are continuously reaching new customers. The explosive growth of the Internet has fueled the creation of new and exciting information services. Most of the technology developed for the Internet has been designed for desktop and larger computers and medium to high bandwidth networks.
Hand held wireless devices present a more constrained computing environment compared to desktop computers. They have less powerful CPU""s and memory than desktop systems. Similarly, wireless data networks present a more constrained communications environment compared to wired networks. Wireless networks have fundamental limitations with respect to power, available spectrum and mobility. The WAP specification has been developed to address mobile network characteristics by adapting existing network technologies for the Internet to the specialized requirements of hand-held wireless data devices.
Access to a wireless application protocol system utilizing WAP technologies is provided via a WAP gateway node. The WAP gateway node is normally located within an Internet service provider (ISP) providing access to the Internet for mobile terminals. However, the WAP gateway node may alternatively be provided by a mobile services operator. In order to obtain access to the WAP gateway node, a user must be authenticated. There are two possible authentication points for a user. The first authentication point is during setup of a data call. This authentication is handled by the integrated access system (IAS) located within a mobile switching center utilized by the mobile terminal and/or a remote authentication dial-in user service (RADIUS) authentication server located in the WAP network.
The user may also be authenticated when accessing particular servers within the WAP network. This manner of authentication may be handled in two different ways. Proxy authentication may be used wherein the WAP gateway returns a status code of xe2x80x9c407xe2x80x9d to a WAP browser. This initiates the same type of basic authentication as occurs for a hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) message. A user ID and password are entered by the user in response to this status code and this data is included within every IP packet from the browser.
A WAP gateway supports several different types of bearer messages, for example, IP, SMS, USSD, etc. A MSISDN is used within the WAP gateway to determine if a user is allowed to use the WAP gateway node, to charge for using the WAP gateway node, and to enable charges for specific content to be transmitted. If SMS or USSD bearer protocols are used, the MSISDN is always included within the data packet and this poses no identification problems for the WAP gateway. However, when using the IP protocol, the integrated access system within the mobile switching center allocates a temporary IP address to the mobile terminal. This IP address is included within messages transmitted to the WAP gateway. The WAP gateway has no way at present to determine the MSISDN number associated with a particular IP address. Thus, some manner for enabling the WAP gateway to associate the temporary IP addresses with a fixed MSISDN number is desired.
The present invention overcomes the foregoing and other problems with a system and method for associating an MSISDN number of a mobile terminal with a temporarily assigned IP address for use with authentication, billing and personalization processes in a network. In response to a wireless network access request by a mobile terminal, a first server located within the wireless network, generates a start packet. The start packet contains an MSISDN of the mobile terminal and an IP address assigned to the mobile terminal by the first server. The start packet is transmitted to a second server within a wireless application protocol network wherein a second server extracts the MSISDN and the assigned IP address from the start packet and stores the MSISDN and the assigned IP address within a database. The database enables storage of the MSISDN and the IP address together such that the database may be accessed using an interface to determine an MSISDN associated with the IP address.
The first server may also generate stop packets responsive to disconnection of the mobile terminal from the wireless network. The stop packet also contains the MSISDN and assigned IP address of the mobile terminal and, responsive to receipt of the stop packet, the second server determines the MSISDN and IP address from the stop packet and deletes these entries from the database.